A variety of seating arrangements comprising a central driver's seat and two rear passenger seats have previously been proposed but these have tended to suffer from various practical limitations or inconveniences so have not been widely adopted. In more recent years, such a seating arrangement for a sports car has been described in WO9218347 by the inventor of the present case and the seating arrangement used in the McLaren F1 (trade mark) sports car was based upon this.
The present invention seeks to develop this concept further to provide a more compact seating arrangement suitable for use in a compact vehicle.
Compact vehicles tend to suffer from compromised driver ergonomics because the front wheel arch intrudes into the passenger cabin. This is the case for both left-hand and right-hand drive vehicles. The present invention also seeks to provide a compact seating arrangement for a vehicle, which provides better ergonomics for the driver.